Exploiting hardware obfuscation methods to prevent and detect hardware Trojans

Abstract

Due to the globalized semiconductor supply chain, integrated circuits suffer from hardware security attacks. Among various attacks, hardware Trojan insertions have emerged as a major security concern. An adversary modifies the original circuit to accomplish the malicious intentions through the hardware Trojan. Hardware obfuscation has been demonstrated as a promising technique to strengthen hardware implementation against hardware Trojan insertion in the late stage of the supply chain. This work reviews the state-of-the-art hardware obfuscation methods, with the special emphasis on the corresponding efforts made for hardware Trojan prevention and detection. Furthermore, we summarize the evaluation metrics utilized in literature to assess the effectiveness of hardware obfuscation methods. Future directions for hardware obfuscation against hardware Trojans are discussed in this work, as well.